The Executive Committee for 2025-2026 is:

Graham Wilkinson, President

Managing Director, Generus Living Group

Graham Wilkinson is the Managing Director of Generus Living Group, the developer and operator of boutique retirement villages. The company has villages in Auckland, Bay of Plenty and Christchurch.

Graham has been on the RVA Executive since 1997 and President from 2015.

Michelle Burke, Vice President

Partner, Anthony Harper Lawyers

Michelle practices as a partner at Anthony Harper Lawyers and is head of the team providing specialist legal advice in the areas of aged care and retirement villages. Prior to joining Anthony Harper, Michelle was a founding partner of Burke Melrose.

She has been working in the retirement village sector since 1990 and has had the opportunity of watching an exciting sector grow in size and sophistication. Michelle has been privileged to serve as a board member of the RVA for the last five years and has actively participated at Board level and on specialist subcommittees including legislation, complaints, accreditation, governance and education.

Michelle acts for a broad range of retirement village clients — corporate, not-for-profit, large, small and in between. This enables her to consider issues from a sector-wide perspective.

Michelle is passionate about ensuring that people understand retirement villages and their benefits. She regularly shares her knowledge by presenting seminars to retirement village managers and the legal profession.

Maggie Owens, Immediate Past President

Non-Executive Director, Metlifecare

Maggie Owens CMinstD is a Non-Executive Director of Metlifecare and Past President of the Retirement Villages Association of New Zealand. Maggie was the Director of Independent Living for Bupa New Zealand for 11 years and has held other roles in the retirement village industry since 1990.

Maggie is a Chartered Member of the Institute of Directors and other Board positions have included two state integrated school Boards and the Catholic Caring Foundation – two of those roles as Chair.

Recently Maggie has led the Education Committee in the development of the Te Ara Training Programme and is Board representative of the RVA Sustainability Forum.

Bruce Cullington

Manager, Acacia Cove Village

Bruce has been the Village Manager of Acacia Cove Village for over 20 years. It is a privately owned lifestyle village, situated on the beautiful Wattle Downs peninsula in Auckland. The village has 232 dwellings occupied by 322 residents.

Prior to this he was a successful real estate salesperson and branch manager. Before that he was Deputy Secretary of the Auckland Harbour Board. He has extensive experience on various Boards, having been Secretary of the National Maritime Museum, having chaired and been secretary of two other charitable trusts, and is currently the chairman of a private company.

He founded and is the Convenor of the ‘RVA Independent Villages Forums.’ These Forums are always well attended and offer support, ideas, and guidance to independently owned villages without back-office support. He regularly mentors and supports new managers.

Bruce won the RVA/Insite Manager of the Year Competition in 2010 and has also been on the RVA Executive since then.

Earl Gasparich

Chief Executive Officer, Metlifecare

Earl joined the Executive Committee of the RVA in June 2015 and has served on the education and PR sub-committees since that time, as well as attending executive meetings.

He has been CEO of Metlifecare since June 2021. Metlifecare owns and operates 37 villages located across New Zealand and is one of the largest providers of retirement living and aged care in New Zealand, providing community, support and care to around 7,500 older New Zealanders.

Prior to joining Metlifecare, Earl was CEO of Oceania Healthcare for approximately seven years, another large operator in both aged care and retirement villages.

Earl is a qualified Lawyer and Chartered Accountant, and was awarded Fellowship status from the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants in September 2014. He also volunteers on the Board of a number of charities, providing necessary governance and a significant contribution to the strategic direction of organisations involved in the provision of community services.

Hon Jo Goodhew

Independent Member

Jo is a proud South Cantabrian and she and husband Mark have three grown-up daughters. Originally a registered nurse by profession, Jo went on to represent her community as a Member of Parliament. She became MP for Aoraki in 2005, and after boundary changes, MP for Rangitata three years later. Jo left Parliament 12 years later after a career that included five years as a Minister in the John Key-led Government.

Her portfolios included time as Minister for Seniors and Associate Minister of Health with responsibility for Aged Care. Other portfolios included Community and Voluntary Sector, Associate Primary Industries, Associate Social Development, Women, and Food Safety.

Following her departure from politics Jo has involved herself in governance within a range of community organisations, is a registered celebrant and an independent contractor.

Jo joined the RVA Executive Committee as an Independent Member early in 2022.

Jeremy Nicoll

Chief Executive Officer, Arvida Group

Jeremy is the CEO of Arvida Group. Jeremy was the CFO from the time of the IPO through to taking on the CEO role in October 2021.

Arvida operates 35 retirement villages located nationally with over 6,750 residents. Each village operates independently under a corporate structure that supports village operations to ensure quality and consistency of service. Arvida provides a continuum of care that extends from independent living to full rest home, hospital and dementia-level care.

Jeremy has substantial experience in the retirement village, property and financial services sectors, which includes a number of senior executive positions within the ING and ANZ businesses in New Zealand over a 14 year period. These roles have included Managing Director of ING Real Estate and Managing Director of ING Insurance.

Jeremy is based in Auckland and is a past President of the Property Council New Zealand.

Simon O'Dowd

Managing Director, Qestral Corporation Ltd

Currently Qestral has three retirement village sites under development along with operating the fully developed Alpine View Lifestyle Village in Christchurch.

Simon joined the RVA Executive Committee in 2016. Over that time, he has attended the Executive meetings and been a member of the Conference committee and the Education committee.

For the last 25 years, Simon has been Chairman of the New Zealand Aged Care Association, which represents the views and interests of the aged care sector. In this role Simon has presented to Ministers and their officials through successive governments.

He also supports the Chief Executive Officer and her staff, based in the Association’s Wellington office which shares a floor with the RVA.

Scott Scoullar

Chief Executive Officer, Summerset

Scott joined Summerset as CEO in 2014. Under his leadership the company has grown from 21 villages to 41 villages, and from $3.6bn in assets to $6.9bn in assets.

Scott has been heavily involved in the company’s long-term strategy development, focused on delivering vibrant villages, offering high quality care, and with customer respect at its core.

Summerset’s goal is to be the first choice of retirement village living for all New Zealanders and bringing the best of life every day to its residents.

Prior to joining Summerset, Scott held CFO roles at both Inland Revenue and Housing New Zealand, with the latter including a significant amount of work associated with managing housing portfolios and investing in new housing developments.